


A seemingly-unsolvable locked room mystery

by dogandmonkeyshow



Series: Watson's Woes WAdvent 2017 fics [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogandmonkeyshow/pseuds/dogandmonkeyshow
Summary: John ponders how to make a happy Christmas for Rosie.





	A seemingly-unsolvable locked room mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Watson's Woes (on Dreamwidth) WAdvent 2017 fanworks gift-a-rama.

John stood just inside the front entrance of Hamley's and wondered what the hell he was thinking. Soft toys of every animal, cartoon character and fictitious creature imaginable stretched out to the far horizon, interspersed with _way_ too many hyper children and fractious parents.

“Not a bloody chance,” he muttered before turning on his heel and escaping the madness. Rosie wasn't even two; she wouldn't know a Steiff bear from a dead monkey and John refused to risk his limited seasonal sanity on launching himself into the onslaught of 50,000 different toys and try to decide which she might prefer.

John stood in the middle of the crowds streaming up and down Regent's Street. Each face he saw was panicked or stressed, and more than a few—mostly women lugging handfuls of bags—looked flat out exhausted. _Merry Christmas_ , John mused as he people-watched for a few seconds. 

He'd always hated this time of the year. His life had given him a drunk, miserable dad, then a drunk, miserable sister. Back when he'd told Mike he'd joined the Army, his friend had opined that John had done it just so he wouldn't have to come up with an excuse not to see his family at Christmas anymore. John remembered he'd scoffed at the time, but subsequent years had taught him that Mike had probably been right.

But now John had a family of his own and he was bound and determined to ensure things would be entirely different for Rosie. He knew that the “right” toy wasn't what he meant. Last Christmas had been more about John and his grief, but this year—and every year from now on—would be about his daughter.

The problem was, John had no idea what a happy, normal, not-likely-to-scar-your-child-for-life Christmas looked like. Well, other than the boring, asinine fantasies peddled by movies and advertising, which were in no way applicable to the real world, much less _John's_ world, populated as it was with Holmeses, for a start.

Standing in the middle of the pavement in front of Britain's largest temple to child consumerism was the last place he was going to find the answer to his question. Realising that was a start, he supposed, as he joined the lurching zombie hordes heading west towards the Tube on his way to Molly's, to pick up Rosie.

Forty minutes later he was sitting on Molly's sofa, as usual fending off her cat, who had always had a strange fasciation with John. He kept an eye on Rosie, who was tearing around the flat looking for her favourite doll.

“Toby, leave John alone,” Molly commanded to no effect, before freeing him from the twelve-pound furball draped across his lap and kneading his thigh with its claws. “Sorry,” Molly apologised after locking the menace in the loo.

“I wanted to ask you something,” John said.

“Okay, sure.”

“About Christmas.”

“Are you having another party? Last year's was fun.”

“No, I wasn't planning to; it's going to be just me and Rosie. And Sherlock, presumably. I don't think he's going to his parents. And you're welcome, of course, if you're not—”

“Oh, no; thanks for the invitation, though. I'm going to my mum's again.” She paused, then a slightly mischievous smile crept onto her face. “Mrs Hudson's going to be in Mallorca with her sister. Who's going to cook the turkey, you or Sherlock?”

“Jesus, no idea.”

“One word: Youtube. My mum's a horrible cook and if she can do one without poisoning anyone, I think you and Sherlock can muddle through.”

“Cheers. Thanks for the vote of confidence.” They shared a comfortable chuckle. “Who did the cooking before Youtube?”

“My dad was the cook. Until he got sick.”

There was a moment or two's uncomfortable silence. “What were your Christmases like when you were a kid?” John asked as he grabbed a giggling Rosie and dragged her up onto his lap.

Molly seemed a little flustered by the question. “Oh, I don't know. Ordinary family Christmas, I guess. Presents, Christmas lunch. Falling asleep on the sofa in the afternoon. Uncle Bert and Auntie Alice arguing about politics. My dad and grandad teasing each other about their horrible football teams. Nothing—” Molly looked off in the distance, lost in memory for a few seconds. “It was—simple. No, that's not really what I meant.” She shrugged. “It was nothing special, just—nice. It was just what we did; no one ever questioned it, I guess.” She gave him one of her astute looks that pointedly reminded him that she wasn't the bubble-brained girl he and Sherlock had for so long dismissed her as. “You'll do fine, John.” She leant over and tweaked Rosie's nose, sending her off into another fit of giggles. “She'll love it, as long as you're there.”

It was his turn to shrug. “I have no idea what I'm doing.”

“No one ever does. You're a good dad, John. It'll be fine.”

John felt himself blush and he couldn't meet her eyes. “Yeah, okay. But if we end up in hospital getting our stomachs pumped, I'm blaming you.”

She laughed. “I can live with that.”

~ + ~

While his conversation with Molly had alleviated some of his anxiety about making a proper Christmas for his daughter, John still had no real idea where he went with his inchoate thoughts about the day.

Three days after talking to Molly, he arrived at Baker Street and was startled by the sight of Sherlock and Mycroft hunched over Sherlock's laptop, deep in conversation about whatever was on the screen.

John couldn't help surprise at the sight. In the months since the Sherrinford horror show, he'd barely seen Mycroft. From the few mentions Sherlock had made of his brother in that time, it seemed as though the two of them were—if anything—getting on better than they ordinarily did, so John knew Mycroft's absences weren't due to one of their periodic escalations in hostilities.

Ever since— _that day_ , and what Mycroft had offered to do, he had seemed strangely subdued around John. John himself had never managed to get his head around what Mycroft had said. Not for his sake, of course, but for Sherlock's, he knew. Regardless, the act had gone against everything John had up to that point thought he'd known about Mycroft Holmes, so the reality of the act hadn't really sunk in for him.

And now here John was, pinned to the spot by those piercing dark blue eyes that were so unlike Sherlocks, but were so often just as unfathomable.

“Uh, hi,” John managed to stumble out.

“John,” Mycroft replied without moving.

“The Grice-Patterson file, John. Where did you put it?” Sherlock demanded without looking up from his furious typing.

“'Er'uck!” Rosie crowed, and John put her on the floor so that she could race over. Mycroft took two precipitous steps away at her approach, barely-masked alarm on his face, and John snickered.

“I didn't put it anywhere, seeing as I don't have any idea what you're talking about.”

Sherlock's head snapped up and he was obviously about to fire off some quip before he pulled in his horns. “Oh, right. You weren't there.”

“Glad to see my presence makes such an impression,” John muttered as he watched Rosie attempt to crawl up Sherlock's trousers, squirming between his lap and the edge of the table. 

Once Sherlock had Rosie settled, she pointed at the laptop screen. “What!?”

“Autopsy report,” Sherlock answered.

“I hardly think—” Mycroft began.

“Glad to hear you're finally admitting that. Does the PM know, or is she so stupid she doesn't even notice?”

Mycroft rolled his eyes. Just a typical day at Baker Street, John noted as he joined them. “Nothing she hasn't seen before,” he reassured Mycroft, then looked over Sherlock's shoulder to the screen. “Or maybe not.” John swallowed back the instant flashback to Helmand and Corporal Baker's exploded— “That can wait, can't it?” John said, then reached over Sherlock's shoulder and gently closed the screen over his still-typing hands.

“Hey! What?” Sherlock protested, shooting a glare over his shoulder.

“There's something I wanted to talk to you about,” John asked in an effort to avoid a fractious three-way argument about the child-friendliness of murder scene photos.

“What?”

“Christmas.”

“Highly over-rated,” Sherlock sniped as he wrestled John for control of the laptop screen. A few seconds later Mycroft deigned to get involved, grabbing the laptop and wrenching it out of both John and Sherlock's hands. With a pointed glare at Rosie, Mycroft took the computer to the kitchen, where he deposited it on the table next to the microscope.

“I'm off, then, if we're finished discussing the case, Sherlock,” Mycroft added as he picked up his coat from where it lay draped over the back of John's chair. “Let me know when Lestrade comes through with that report.”

“Don't go on my account,” John protested. “I'm not staying long.”

“Don't stay on my account. John and I have a lot to discuss,” Sherlock countered. “Christmas. And such.”

John could tell Mycroft was considering dawdling just to annoy his brother, but it was also clear he couldn't bear to be in the same room as John for some reason.

Sherlock pointedly turned to John. “What about Christmas?”

“You're coming to mine, aren't you?”

“Of course I am.”

John braced himself and turned to Mycroft. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

A flare of near-panic momentarily flashed in the man's eyes. “I will be at home—” 

“You could come to mine—”

“No!”

“No, thank you, John.” Mycroft sent a snide little glare at Sherlock. “Thank you for the invitation, but I'm very much looking forward to a quiet day at home.”

“So not going to your parents?”

Both brothers shuddered in perfect unison.

“Being drugged by my little brother two years ago has finally convinced our parents of the joys of Christmas vacations. _Foreign_ Christmas vacations,” Mycroft intoned. “We might consider that the principal benefit of Sherlock's murderous rampage—”

“One is hardly a rampage,” Sherlock muttered.

“We're not having this argument again. It was tedious the first three times.”

“Four.”

“Okay, okay, Heckle and Jeckle, enough already.” John pointed at Sherlock. “So, you're at mine. You have any requests?”

“A seemingly-unsolvable locked room mystery.”

“I was thinking more along the line of vegetables.”

“Oh. No sprouts.”

“Done. I'll do my best with the locked-room mystery, but no promises.” He turned to Mycroft. “You sure you—”

“Yes, very sure, let me assure you.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, well, I have a—” Mycroft frowned at the top of Sherlock's head as he pointedly rustled through a file. “Why do I bother,” Mycroft muttered as he headed for the door, making a wide circuit around where Rosie had retreated and was now pounding a doll on the floor. “Sherlock, John. If I don't see you before then, have a Happy Christmas. I'm sure I'll see you soon in the New Year.”

“Yeah, thanks, you too,” John replied, glancing at Sherlock, who continued to overtly ignore both of them. 

When John turned back, Mycroft was gone. “Is it just me, or has he been even weirder than usual lately?”

Sherlock glanced over to the empty doorway and gave no response other than a thoughtful hum for a second or two before retrieving his laptop from the kitchen. “Define 'weird' for Mycroft.”

“Uh, is he afraid of me all if a sudden? I mean, ever since—you know—he just runs off every time I come in the room.” 

Sherlock stared blankly at the screen as if it had the answer. “He's—not been himself, you're right. Not that being taken down a peg or two isn't just what he deserves—”

“Right.” _Time to be soldiers. As if._ John hadn't liked Mycroft's rebuke that day—as if he'd even the tiniest notion of what it meant to be a solider. But John was surprised that Mycroft was still so affected by that day. “The higher they fly, the further they fall, I guess.”

“Something like that.”

“You think it's okay to leave him on his own?”

“Stop fussing. There's no one on this planet less likely to self harm other than my brother. Discounting his housekeeper letting him stuff himself with shortbread and _fois gras_ for Christmas lunch. Leave him to his self-pity; nothing makes him happier than spending a day polishing his grievances.”

John's internal Doctor Watson had his reservations about that assessment. “So what was Christmas like when you were kids? I mean, did you all barricade yourselves in different rooms and ignore one another?”

“If only we'd been allowed to. It would have been the only way to escape my mother's forced bonding rituals and Father's attempts at seasonal humour.”

“I like your parents.”

“Considering who spawned and raised you, I'm not surprised you've fallen for the facade of normality mine foist on the unwary.”

“Do you remember any Christmases from—before?”

Sherlock gave him a flat stare for a second before he relented. “Not really. Like the rest of it—flashes, bits of memories have come back. Snapshots.” He paused and leant back in his chair, arms crossed. “I remember exactly where Mummy put the tree up in the library at Musgrave every year. I remember the year our Scott grandparents and Uncle Rudy came; I was four and Eurus three. I have one vivid memory of hiding under the kitchen table and eavesdropping on my mother and grandmother whispering in the corner about Rudy, unaware of the rather advanced education in deviance they were unintentionally passing on to me. Mostly I remember the thrill of being terribly naughty for snooping and not getting caught.” Sherlock shrugged and John sensed he was embarrassed, itself a near-unique experience. “I can't imagine why you think my childhood's of any interest. Only incompetent psychiatrists think that.”

John recognised the “back off” turn of Sherlock's mood.

“Why do you care?” Sherlock asked as he returned his attention to his computer.

John knew that question wasn't about his sudden curiosity about Holmes family history. “Why don't you?” He knew the confusion on Sherlock face at that reply was genuine. “He did offer up his life for mine; you do remember that, don't you? That creates a bond, regardless of—anything else.”

“Is that how it happens? I've always wondered.”

John watched Sherlock pointedly typing away, leaving him to his own thoughts on the attritional warfare that could happen between the heart and the mind and what that could do to a person.

~ + ~

John and Greg stood aside to let the EMTs load the victim into the ambulance for the journey to the morgue.

“What you up to for Christmas?” Greg asked, obviously stretched for topics of conversation.

“Just me and Rosie and Sherlock at mine.”

“You cooking a bird?”

“Probably just order in Chinese and watch Rosie destroy her presents.”

Greg chuckled. “Sounds like fun.”

“What about you?”

“I'm off to Barcelona for four days.”

“Really? How'd you get the time off?”

“Barker dropped dead in April. Massive heart attack. So I'm not low man anymore. Kelly's stuck working Christmas shift this year.” John thought Greg's slightly smug glee at Kelly's misfortune a bit out of character; but then, he couldn't imagine having to work Christmas Day.

“You going alone?”

“Nope, going with Stella.”

This was the first John had heard about Greg seeing someone, and was glad to hear it; Greg deserved to find someone. “Stella?”

“Hopkins. DI. You've met her.”

John remembered: early 40s, dark hair, a real looker and smart to boot. “Good man. What about—”

“What about what?”

“Christina.”

It took Greg a second to remember. “Oh, yeah, Chris. We went out a couple of times. She's great—a lot more of a laugh than you'd expect for a friend of Mycroft's, especially once she's had a couple. No spark, though. We still—she took me to Twickenham for the Australia match a few weeks ago; you know, just as friends. Had a great time.”

“Yeah, okay. Probably best, considering.”

“Too right. I've got more than enough Mycroft hovering over me because of his nibs.” Greg nodded towards where Sherlock was looming over Bartoli, the SOCO pathologist, waving his arms at her in Sherlock semaphore for “you have no idea what you're talking about”.

John snorted. 

A slightly contemplative expression appeared on Greg's face as he watched Sherlock and Bartoli argue, her Italian pugnacity more than a match for his overbearing self-righteousness.

“You know, I'm still kind of—I don't know, surprised—at how Sherlock's—” Greg trailed off, abandoning the thought, which just made John more curious.

“Sherlock's what?”

“How he's coped with your kid.”

“Huh.” If he were honest with himself, John was, as well. Not that they'd started that way. “It took a while. He was kind of—freaked out by her at first.” He paused, silenced by his embarrassment at how it had taken them months to sort out their respective feelings on the matter because both of them had behaved like selfish idiots for three months. “But he's really stepped up, you know, especially since—”

“Yeah, okay. That's good. I mean, I always suspected he'd get there in the end, but—”

“Yeah.” John smiled. 

“First Christmas, just the two of you—”

“I'm going to assume by 'two of you' you mean me and Rosie.”

“Well, yeah, of—” Greg stopped at seeing John's smirk. “Bastard,” Greg grumbled in mock discontent.

They watched the distant pantomime of Sherlock trying to bully Bartoli, and her blithely refusing to be bullied. John thought it probably the best gift anyone could give the man.

“People keep telling me it'll be fine, but what if it's not?”

“What?” Greg turned to John, wrong-footed by the sudden turn in the conversation.

“I always—I always assumed I'd have Mary to fix things when I screwed up with Rosie. My mum was—lovely, but she never tried to stand up for us or herself. My dad was a drunk, violent arsehole, the definition of a disaster, so what the hell do I know about making a kid happy? But Mary would have been there to pick up the pieces, and now she's not. Who's going to fix things if I screw up?” John knew he was being inappropriately emotional, but Greg—god bless him—didn't even flinch in the face of it. “Sorry, I—”

“No, it's okay. I mean, I've never had kids, so I can't imagine—” Greg paused as he chased down the words he wanted. “At least you care enough to try, right? You know what not to do: whatever your old man did, or whatever Sherlock eggs you on to do when he occasionally regresses to being a selfish bastard. Steer clear of those, and—just, I don't know. Be there.”

“My dad was always there, and—”

“Okay, so don't be a drunk, abusive arsehole. There you go.”

“I should start making a list.”

Greg gave off a small huff of laughter, like a puff of cigarette smoke into the cold night air. “You already know what you have to do.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

“Yeah, well, I have the confidence of the blessedly childless, so maybe it's a good thing you don't.” 

John laughed; he did feel a little better. “Does it get any easier?” he wondered aloud, more to himself than as a question.

“Not according to my sister. But you'll get better at it before it gets harder, so it'll all balance out in the end. Show up. Pay attention. Don't try to antagonize anyone. Just like any other job, I guess.”

“And if I fuck up my kid I'll send you the psychiatrist's bill.”

“With her parents, your kid goes off the rails, she's going to be behind bars, not on some shrink's couch.”

“With her Uncle Sherlock's training, you lot'll never get near her,” Sherlock interjected as he strode up. “Bartoli is even more annoying than I remembered,” he added.

“You only think that because she's damned good at her job. So don't piss her off; I wouldn't be able to find anyone else half as good as her who'd put up with you. Lucky for you, she think's you're hilarious,” Greg added and John thought he did so just to put a bit of a sting in it.

Sherlock only sniffed and looked down his nose at them for a moment before swirling off.

John chortled. “I guess we're leaving.”

“I guess so.” Greg turned from watching Sherlock to John. “Have a good Christmas, if I don't see you before then. Don't let Sherlock burn your house down.”

“Yeah, that's a standing agenda item. Have a great time in Barcelona with Stella. Say hi from me.”

“Sure, will do.”

The two of them shared a smile. 

Then John strode after Sherlock, who was standing at the door of one of his ever-present cabs, waiting for him.

“Do you have everything sorted now?” Sherlock asked as John approached. He had one of his knowing little smirks on.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Took you long enough.” Sherlock slid into the back of the cab.

“You're the last person in the world I'm taking parenting advice from,” John called through the door after him.

“According to my mother, I'm the 'adult' in the family.”

“That says it all, doesn't it,” John muttered as he walked around to the other side of the car.

“What?”

“Nothing.” John plopped himself down onto the other end of the passenger seat.

“What are you getting Rosie for Christmas?” Sherlock asked a minute later as the cab idled in traffic.

John spent a few seconds wondering why Sherlock cared, then realised he didn't. “A seemingly-unsolvable locked-room mystery. Apparently.”

“Excellent.”

~ + ~


End file.
